Digital lighting technologies, i.e. illumination based on semiconductor light sources, such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs), today offer a viable alternative to traditional fluorescent, HID, and incandescent lamps. Recent advances in LED technology coupled with its many functional advantages such as high energy conversion and optical efficiency, durability, and lower operating costs, has led to the development of efficient and robust full-spectrum lighting sources that enable a variety of lighting effects. For example, fixtures embodying these lighting sources may include one or more LEDs capable of producing different colors, e.g. red, green, and blue, as well as a processor for independently controlling the output of the LEDs in order to generate a variety of colors and color-changing lighting effects, as discussed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,016,038 and 6,211,626, incorporated herein by reference.
Controllable lighting networks and systems include lighting management systems utilizing digital technologies in order to control the lighting in one or more spaces. Controllable lighting networks and systems may control luminaires in a space based on the personal lighting preferences of individuals detected within or otherwise associated with a space. Many controllable lighting networks and systems utilize sensor systems to receive information about the spaces under their influence. Such information may include the identities of individuals detected within such spaces as well as the personal lighting preferences associated with such individuals.
Controllable lighting networks and systems may access user preference data such as users' lighting preferences and control the lighting within a space to reflect individual preferences. While some users may wish to allow such systems unrestricted access to such personal data, others may wish to exercise some degree of control over the kind of personal information available to controllable lighting networks. Still others may simply wish to prevent such systems from reacting to their presence despite having access to their personal data. For example, a security guard may wish to prevent a controllable lighting system from responding to his or her presence when patrolling a building, to avoid alerting an intruder. Moreover, users may wish to grant particular controllable lighting systems access to personal information, while restricting access to other such systems. Similarly, users may want controllable lighting networks and systems to react to their presence at certain times of the day, and ignore their presence at all other times.
Currently, there exists no convenient means for users to exercise control over a controllable lighting system's access to personal information such as personal lighting preference information. Moreover, there currently exists no convenient means by which users may exercise control over such a system's reaction to their presence. There also exists no convenient means for users to interactively influence the reaction of controllable lighting systems while such users are present within regions controlled by such systems. For example, a user walking into a room has no convenient means of communicating a change in his or her lighting preferences to the controllable lighting system responsible for controlling the lighting in the room based on his or her preferences. This ability to dynamically alter lighting preference information and timely alert controllable lighting systems of such alterations is important, however, because it enables users to incorporate previously unavailable information to update their lighting preferences. For example, a user who is physically present in a room has the benefit of using additional information, such as the amount of natural light present in the room, to determine how much additional artificial light he or she prefers.
As a result, there exists a need in the art for systems and methods for managing interaction with controllable lighting networks and systems. More particularly, there exists a need in the art for systems and apparatus for determining preferred levels of interactivity with controllable lighting networks and systems, for exercising control over such systems' access to user information, for exercising control over such systems' reaction to user presence, and for communicating changes in user preferences to such systems.